Mark 14:12-26 – Sharing the Cup of Suffering

July 5, 2012

Just as there were two movements in Mark 14:1-11, a conspiracy to kill and a mealtime anointing in preparation for death, so there are two movements in Mark 14:12-26. The first recognizes the conspiracy along with the subsequent faithlessness of the disciples and the second describes another meal that carries the significance of Jesus’ death.

Though Mark 14:12-16, the preparation for the Passover meal, is often barely mentioned, it is significant as a “set-up” for what follows. On the one hand it links us to the conspiratorial atmosphere of the text and on the other hand it provides an explicit context for the meal itself. The conspiratorial dimension is often overlooked. A few disciples are sent into the city ahead of Jesus to prepare the Passover meal. Jesus himself does not enter the city till nightfall. In effect, Jesus avoids the crowds and the authorities. It is possible, as Myers (Binding the Strong Man, 360-361) suggests, that the signal (a man carrying water!) and pre-arranged space are part of a counter-conspiracy to protect Jesus while in the city for the Passover. In any event, the preparation is covert rather than pubic.

The procedure Jesus utilizes reminds readers of Jesus’ triumphal entry into the city where he sent disciples ahead to secure a donkey (Mark 11:2-6). The contrast between Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on Sunday and his entry on this Thursday evening is startling. In the first he is publicly hailed as a Messianic figure but now he sneaks into Jerusalem under cover of darkness. Mark’s emphasis on the arranging of the events in both chapter eleven and here underscore how he uses the two events to provide a context for understanding the words and actions of Jesus. Jesus entered the Temple as a messianic royal figure in chapter eleven but here enters Jerusalem under the threat of death as the suffering servant of Isaiah.

Further, the text identifies this meal with the Passover. We are to read the actions and words of Jesus through the lens of Passover theology. What he does and says at this meal has Passover meaning. Whatever problems and difficulties this entails in terms of comparison with other Gospels or chronology need not detain us here as we read the Gospel of Mark. Our author wants us to read this narrative against the backdrop of the Passover. This provides a hermeneutical frame for understanding the meaning of Jesus’ death.

The meal itself is described in two phrases. First, Jesus reveals his awareness of the conspiracy to kill him. Second, Jesus interprets his death. The former acknowledges the breakdown of community among his disciples which will further reveal itself when they all scatter in the wake of Jesus’ arrest, but the latter—through the solidarity of eating the bread and drinking the cup—invites the disciples to participate in his ministry, suffering and death. The latter starkly contrasts with the former.

First, Jesus acknowledges that one of his disciples will betray him to the authorities. This is an astounding announcement in the midst of a Passover meal which is designed as the fellowship of a family or intimate group. The community that Jesus has formed during his ministry with the Twelve is now breaking down and it will disintegrate before the night is over. The very meaning of the Passover meal is subverted by the betrayer. The fellowship of the meal (eating together) is colored by the darkness of betrayal.

Probably nothing could have stunned the disciples more than this news. They are first saddened and then introspective (“Is it I?”). The term that describes their grief is the same that characterizes the emotion of the Rich Young Ruler who walked away from Jesus’ invitation to follow him (cf. Mark 10:22). The disciples are disappointed, and this turns them even more inward. They begin to question their own allegiance. Perhaps they don’t even know themselves or perhaps they have done or said something that inadvertently betrayed Jesus.

As the disciples look within themselves, Jesus offers a theological interpretation of the betrayal. He alludes to Psalm 41 where the Psalmist laments that not only his “enemies whisper” against him and “imagine the worst” for him (like the Temple authorities), but that even his “close friend” whom he “trusted” and who “shared [his] bread” has also “lifted up his heel against” him. With the language of “dips the bread into the bowl with me,” Jesus is not so much identifying the betrayer as he is identifying with the Psalmist. This should have alerted the disciples to the danger of this night. The Son of Man must suffer, as Jesus as told his disciples on previous occasions (cf. Mark 10:32-45).

The word against the betrayer, “it would be better for him if he had not been born,” is not so much a condemnation or judgment as much as it is a recognition that the betrayer will wish that he had never been born. Job and Jeremiah, in quite different circumstances, felt that way. But the difference between Job and Judas was while the one endured through faith the other ended his life. This horror, however, will not only encompass Judas but the other disciples as well (e.g., Peter will deny Jesus). All the disciples will become complicit through their desertion of Jesus.

In the second phase of the meal in Mark’s story, Jesus interprets the significance of the meal that evening. Mark nowhere describes the meal but assumes it. We get no details about the length of the meal, the food at the meal or conversation surrounding the meal. In fact, Mark provides the briefest account in the Gospels. It is short, but on point. Still, the Passover contextualizes this brief interpretation and should not be read without that referential frame in mind. At the same, Mark does not highlight any memoralistic understanding of the meal (he does not say, “remember me”). Mark has another emphasis.

“While they were eating,” Mark says, Jesus (1) took bread, (2) gave thanks, (3) broke it, and (4) gave it the disciples (and a similar structure for the cup). This deliberate construction—which is repeated in other accounts—is important. It is a deliberate, interpretative act on the part of Jesus. It conforms to the breaking of the bread in a Passover mea (though here it does not begin the meal) but it is given a radically different meaning. The four-fold structure highlights a ritual which carries the meaning of the eating itself. This bread is a gift from God that is distributed to the disciples.

“This is my body” is an interpretation of the meal. It gives new meaning to the Passover without subverting its previous meaning. It is a fulfillment of the Passover. Just as the bread of the Passover represented life and liberation, so the body of Jesus gives life and liberation. Bread is what nourishes life, and the body of Christ nourishes believers. Bread is life, and it is shared life. This is a communal experience of life that is grounded in the gift of Christ’s body. In effect Jesus says “my body” will give new life to this community.

“This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many” is an allusion to the sacrificial system of Israel and the Passover context gives specific meaning to this allusion. The blood of the Lamb—as blood in the Levitical system itself—gives life. Jesus is the Passover lamb whose blood has covenantal significance. This blood is covenantal blood; it enacts covenant (or, in Hebrew, it “cuts covenant”).

Jesus’ statement is itself an allusion to at least three texts in the Hebrew Scriptures. The “blood of the covenant” takes Jewish readers back to Exodus 24 when God inaugurated his covenant with Israel at Mt. Sinai (Exodus 24:8). More significantly, it raises the horizon of Zechariah 9:9-11. Earlier Mark had alluded to Zechariah 9:9 as he described the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, and Mark builds on that allusion by aligning Zechariah 9:11 with the story of Jesus as well. Covenantal blood frees prisoners; it is liberation. The King who rides into Jerusalem on a donkey is a liberator who “proclaim[s] peace to the nations.” But this king, in the Gospel of Mark, rides to his death rather than a military action. Jesus liberates the oppressed through suffering rather than through the pursuit of violence.

The blood of Jesus is poured out to free the prisoners; it is “poured out for many.” In that phrase we encounter our third Hebrew textual allusion. Isaiah 53:12 identifies the Suffering Servant as one who “poured out his life unto death” and “bore the sin of many.” Jesus will give life through suffering and deal with sin through dying. Jesus identifies himself with the Suffering Servant of Isaiah–he suffers that Israel might go free.

The Passover meal is given a new horizon of meaning. This does not subvert its original meaning. Rather, the original meaning is taken to a new height. The Passover lamb died to liberate the firstborn from death and bring Israel out of Egyptian bondage. Jesus is the new lamb; he is the true lamb of God. Through his death, he gives new life (body) and frees us from sin (blood). The original meaning of the Passover remains but it is transformed by the new reality that dawns in the death (and resurrection) of Jesus.

The communal dimension of the Passover is likewise carried forward. They probably sang the Passover Psalms at this meal (Psalms 113-118; Mark 14:26). When Jesus takes the cup, he shares it with his disciples. They drink from the same cup. It is the cup of suffering (cf. Mark 10:39-40; 14:36). They drank it that day in solidarity with Jesus as people committed to the way of suffering even though they would shortly falter in that commitment. The cup that Jesus drank, they drank. But they will not follow Jesus to the cross.

When we eat and drink at the table of the Lord, it is the gift of life and forgiveness. It is a table of mercy. But it is also a table of commitment. As we drink the cup, we commit ourselves to the way of the cross, the way of suffering for the sake of the world. As we eat bread and drink the cup, we share a communal life that is shaped by the ministry of Jesus. This calls us to a different kind of life—one that pursues peace and reconciliation rather than violence. When we eat and drink together, we recommit ourselves to that way of life.

The table bears witness to that new life which is the reality of the kingdom of God. The reference to the kingdom in Mark 14:25 is not primarily about a messianic banquet in the new heaven and new earth but is rather about the in-breaking of the kingdom of God into the present. Jesus in the Gospel of Mark is the reality of the kingdom in the world, so the bread and wine are now the reality of the kingdom. In this new reality—the kingdom of God—Jesus eats and drinks with us. We eat and drink with the living Christ whose death has transformed life.

We eat and drink, however, as flawed disciples—just like the disciples gathered around that Thursday evening table in the upper room of Jerusalem. We falter and fail, but the table renews our life and at the table we renew our commitment.

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

Mark 12:18-27: Who is Your God?

May 10, 2012

In this story Jesus confronts the limiting rationality of Sadducees who think it impossible that God should raise the dead. Their theology is limited by their own experience and rational argumentation.

I dare say that is not too uncommon in our present moment as well. For example, it is not unusual to hear, “If God is like _________, then I could never believe in a God like that.” The assumptions present in that statement are numerous but at bottom it rests on the presumption that God must fit (or conform to) my rationality to be worthy of my affirmation. It turns the table on the God-human relationship as we judge an infinite God by a finite, fallible human rationality.

Jesus catches the Sadducees doing this very thing.

The Sadducees, authorities in the Jewish ruling council (the Sanhedrin), appear as the fourth group to attempt to trip up Jesus while he taught in the temple. The chief priests and elders questioned Jesus about his authority to cleanse the temple, the Pharisees and Herodians questioned him about the Caesar tax, and now the Sadducees question him about the resurrection. But this last question does not seem to be the same sort of question as the first two since those endangered his life. Actually, this last question was one of many inter-Jewish disputes between the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

So, what is the function of this question? At one level, it may simply be an attempt to stump Jesus and thereby undermine the hold he had on the populace as a teacher. The Sadducees, by using their “trump” question–the question that would immediately defeat the opponent (like “what about the person who dies on the way to baptism?”), possibly hoped to dishonor Jesus and demystify his status as a great teacher.

At another level, something more significant may be at stake in this question. Some suggest that it is about power, land ownership and ruling authority. Levirate marriage laws (Deuteronomy 25:5-6 ; cf. Genesis 38:8) secured the inheritance of land within a clan or family through regulations that mandated that a brother marry his sibling’s childless widow. The land could not be inherited by a widow (read: woman) and thus she needed a legitimate child to inherit the land. If this is the point, then their question is about who will inherit the land in the resurrection as much as it is whose wife will she be.

Others, I think more correctly, suggest that the issue concerns the nature of the new age, the reality of a resurrected world and life in it. The Sadducees assume that resurrected life is wholly identical with the present reality. For them resurrection, as they understood it from (presumably) the Pharisees, is that there is little to no difference between resurrection and resuscitation. And this is the point that Jesus addresses directly.

Jesus claims that they err because they “know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.” This is an important characterization. It signals exactly how Jesus will respond to the query.

First, they do not know the power of God. They have limited God by their own conception of rational possibilities. Resurrection, for them, can only mean that life will continue as it is now. But Jesus undermines this assumption. While there is continuity between the present and resurrected life (our personal identities, for example), there is also discontinuity. The new age (the resurrected life) will be different. Procreation will not be part of the coming age so there is no need for marriage as it presently exists regulated by Torah legislation. We will be “like angels”–not that we will be angels ourselves; that is, our communal relations will be similar to how the angelic community lives in harmony with each other. The difference between angels and humanity, however, is that we will inherit the land (the cosmos).

Second, they do not know the Scriptures. Jesus quotes Exodus 3:6 which recalls a key moment in Israel’s history, the day when Moses encountered Yahweh at the burning bush. Many interpreters focus on the present tense (“I am the Gd of Abraham”) as the key to how Jesus uses the text in response to the Sadducees. In other words, God is still the God of Abraham, that is, Abraham is still living. This form of Jewish “grammatical exegesis,” however, does not seem to fully fit the bill since this does not really say anything about resurrection but, at the most, only their present ongoing existence (which is not resurrected life itself).

Instead, following Janzen’s suggestion [JNST 23 (1985) 43-58], Jesus is not utilizing a grammatical exegesis but is rather employing a narratival hermeneutic. When Jesus uses the ancestral formula, “the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,” we remember the ancestral narratives of these patriarchs. We remember Abraham whose wife was barren but yet gave life. We remember the barrenness of Rebekah and Rachel. The wombs of Israel’s ancestors were dead but God gave them life. Thus, the formula remembers a God who brings life out of death. This is the God of Israel, the one who brings life from death. Yahweh is a resurrecting God, one who delivers Israel from death. God does not leave Israel in death but gives life.

The Sadducees are faulted on two counts. They put God in the box of their own rationality and they don’t even know their own story.

Humans, whether we are talking about theodicy, omniscience or other issues in philosophical theology, tend to put boundaries on their gods. They like them to conform to their expectations and to the limits of their own rationality. We will only believe in a God who suits us or we will only believe something about God that fits within our parameters. This is the mistake of the Sadducees. They do not know the “power” of God or, we might add, the frailty and fallibility of their own rationality.

At the same time, we don’t just believe in any god. Rather, we confess the God of Scripture. We embrace a narrative logic. This God is faithful; Yahweh does not lie. This God is powerful; Yahweh can save. We read Scripture, not simply to do tidbits of grammatical exegesis, but to hear the narrative story–to embrace the narrative logic–of the self-revealing God. We know the Scriptures so that we might know our God and experience the life God gives. With Jesus, we confess that our God delivers from death.

Such a confession does not fit our experience. People die all around us and they do not come back to life. Just like the succession of seven brothers, they all die. But the narrative logic of Scripture–the narrative of a redeeming, life-giving God–overwhelms our experience and we confess that God will raise the dead and give life.

This confession, however, is not simply about resuscitation. Rather, we confess that God will inaugurate a new age. God will create a new heaven and a new earth in which the redeemed people of God will live in their resurrected bodies suited for the new age. While our rationality (and even our science) may find that hard to believe, Christians confess both the power of God and the narrative logic of Scripture.

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

Mark 12:13-17 – To Whom Does It Belong? Taxes and Such

May 7, 2012

I think the question is an important one. To whomever it belongs, it is owed.  One must decide their allegiance based on who the owner is. “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God’s the things that are God’s” (Mark 12:17).

The question whether Israel should pay the Caesar tax has been much abused. Many, if not most, have understood Jesus’ answer in a way that is subversive to his fundamental point. To say, ultimately, that there are two realms or two kingdoms, the nation-state and the kingdom of God (an ancient version of state and church), is to say there are two owners. But–and this is the key point–Yahweh owns it all. Consequently, only Yahweh’s kingdom–only the kingdom of God–has any ultimate claim on our lives as disciples of Jesus.

The context of Mark’s narrative is extremely important in this text. Otherwise, as is often done, we might lift Jesus aphorism out its setting and give it an independent status. When we decontextualize his statement then we are free to import a different meaning by recontextualizing in our own setting even without knowing that we are doing so. In this way Jesus’ statement is understood as a piece of American brilliance that separates church and state.

This text is set within a string of controversies that contrast the authority of the Jewish leaders with the authority of the kingdom of God. Jesus raised the question whether John the Baptist’s authority was divine or human (Mark 11:) and Jesus underscored that the temple authorities are stewards of God’s vineyard (Mark 12:1-11). God is the owner; no human authority is. Jesus, thus, undermines any claims to authority that the Sanhedrin or leaders might assume. God reigns; human authority does not. It is in this context that the question arises: to whom does it belong? The assumed answer, on the part of Jesus, is that it belongs to God who reigns over the world.

The leaders responded to this agenda by seeking to arrest and execute Jesus. But his popularity was too high and his presence too public. Consequently, they had to find a way to either undermine his popularity or enrage the Romans who would execute him, and they thought they had the perfect question to do it. “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Should we pay them, or should we not?” It is important to note that Pharisees and Herodians posed the question. It was a group effort, and the Herodians themselves were royalists who compromised with Rome in order to remain in power.

Either way Jesus answered would get him into trouble. If he said, “Yes,” pay the tax, then his popularity would wane as the tax was a hated aspect of popular culture. If he said, “No,” don’t pay the tax, then the Romans would have cause to move against him for treason and fomenting rebellion.

At our distance it is difficult to imagine how politically and religiously explosive this question was.   The tax under question is a specific one called kenson (which is a Greek transliteration of the Latin census). When Judea came under direct Roman administration in 6 C.E., this tax spawned a rebellion by Judas the Galilean who, according to Josephus, called collaborators “cowards for consenting to pay tribute to the Romanists and tolerating mortal masters, after having God for the Lord” (Wars, II.viii.1). Finally, when imperial taxes were raised in 64 C.E. the land revolted in 66 C.E. and this rebellion resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple (cf. Wars, II.xiv.1).

Would Jesus dare to say, “pay the tax” and alienate the populace? Or, would he dare to say, “don’t pay the tax” and suffer the charge of treason?

The cunning with which the Pharisees and Herodians approach Jesus belies their duplicity. They recognize that Jesus is someone who speaks the truth and is unconcerned by populist or political views. Jesus, they ostensibly believe, will “teach the way of God.” In other words, they attempt to “play” Jesus and encourage him to give a direct answer to a politically-charged question. Playing to the crowd, they affirm Jesus as one who will tell the truth no matter what the consequences. They have baited Jesus like a fish.  But will he bite?

Jesus sees through the question–he sees their “hypocrisy.” This hypocrisy is revealed when Jesus asks for a denarius (an imperial coin). They have one! Not only that, “they” have one in the temple courts! “They” give him a coin and Jesus asks his own question.

“Whose image and inscription is this?” This is a loaded question itself. The term “image” reminds us that Emperors invited worship through their images; this was idolatry in the minds of devout Jews in the first century. To use the word “image” is to conjure up all sorts of “images” of imperial oppression and idolatry, the command to make no graven images, and humans are the “image” of God rather than gods themselves. Further, the word “inscription” only occurs one other time in Mark when one is placed over the head of Jesus on his cross (Mark 15:26). Roman images and inscriptions are hostile ideas in first century Palestine. It is Caesar’s image and Caesar’s inscription. This is not a welcome point in colonial Palestine occupied by Roman legions.

The image is Caesar and the inscription makes a claim over the world. The imperial denarius of Tiberius contains not only the likeness of the Emperor but also an inscription which read: “TI(berius) CAESAR DIVI(ni) AUG(usti) F(ilius) AUGUSTUS,” which means “Tiberius, Caesar, Son of the Divine Augustus.” The image on one side of the coin represented Tiberius sitting on his throne as one who ruled over the known world. The inscription reads “PONTIF(ex) MAXIM(us) or “High Priest.” Tiberius Caesar claims to rule the whole world–both politically and religiously. It claims that Caesar owns the known world.

It is little wonder that this coin was unpopular among Jews in occupied Palestine. In fact, Herod the Great and Herod Antipas minted bronze coins for daily use without images to avoid any offense to Jewish sensibilities. The imperial coin, however, represented imperial claims and interests.

Then Jesus amazes his questioners with his response. “Render (repay?) to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

Many read this as a parallelism (Caesar/God) which separates the world into two legitimate spheres: state and religion. In this way it is read as an affirmation that there are two kingdoms–divine (kingdom of God) and human (nation-states), and each are equally legitimate and each bears their own authority in their separate realms. In other words, in this view, Jesus is saying, “pay the tax; it belongs to Caesar.”

This is often extended to mean that the state has its own authority such that it may legitimately authorize violence whether in a “just” war or in capital punishment. This is something citizens owe Caesar when asked. Or, this is something citizens owe their state when asked to defend it. This is how Sergeant York came to the conclusion that he should serve his country in WWI according the popular movie (see the clip here).

But there is another way to read this which better fits the context as Jesus denies any human authority that subverts divine ownership. The saying is actually antithetical, that is, either it belongs to Caesar or it belongs to God. Render what is owed to the owner. Is Caesar the owner or is God the owner? Is it imaginable that Jesus could have legitimated Caesar’s claims and affirmed Caesar’s ownership when, contextually, Jesus has just denied the ownership of the vineyard by the Jewish leaders?

It seems to me that Jesus is pushing the question back on the querists. You decide, Jesus says. If you think it belongs to Caesar, then pay the tax. If you think it violates God’s ownership, don’t pay the tax. In effect, Jesus is non-committal. He will not decide for them but rather turns it back on them for them to answer. What will they do? And, thus, they are caught in their own trap. They have to decide what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God.

This is why, I think, they marvel. This is the only place in the New Testament where this strong word occurs (exethaumazon). They are incredulous; they are stumped. They have no response.

Jesus does not answer with a cute–”yes, of course, pay the tax since it belongs to Caesar.” Instead, he turns the question back to his interrogators. Let them judge what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God.

But implicit in Jesus’s answer–if we understand it as an antithesis–is a rejection of Caesar since everything already belongs to God. Caesar is owed nothing because  God already owns everything. Jesus is not legitimizing the authority of Caesar. On the contrary, he claims that God is the owner.

That does not mean that Jesus necessarily opposes paying any taxes under any circumstances. Rather, it simply means that it is God who reigns rather than Caesar. Jesus lives under the authority of the kingdom of God; he does not live under the authority of Caesar. Jesus will give to God what belongs to God, that is, everything….and that may very well include legitimately paying taxes as part of shared responsibility in a social compact (but that is another topic altogether).

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

Mark 12:1-12 — The Contested Vineyard

April 24, 2012

The Parable of the Tenants is the second in a series of seven confrontations between Jesus and Jewish leaders. Jesus had entered Jerusalem as a triumphant messianic figure, cleansed the temple, and was now walking the temple courts as a rabbi (teacher) with a large following. The temple leaders could not allow this presumption to go unchallenged as it threatened their own authority. Their first question for Jesus reflects their defensiveness: “by what authority are you doing these things?” (11:28). The issue is authority.

The Parable of the Talents is Jesus’s response to the concerns of the temple leaders. He spoke the parable “to them,” that is, to “the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders” (11:27). The parable, then, is about the authority of the Jewish leadership, that is, the temple authorities (including the Sanhedrin). This is a critical point in understanding to whom the parable applies (12:9).

Another significant element that characterizes this parable is how it echoes the parable of Isaiah 5:1-7. Like this parable, Isaiah’s parable was a judgment parable. Israel is pictured as a vineyard which God (the owner) had planted, tended and protected. However, the vineyard failed to yield the fruit of righteousness. Instead, Israel had pursued violence (5:7), unjust wealth (5:8-12) and injustice (5:7, 22-23). Isaiah’s parable, like this one in Mark 12, is directed primarily at wealthy leaders, and it judges their evil.

The parable assumes a common socio-economic arrangement in Palestine. Landowners would often rent their lands to workers for a share of the profits produced by the crop. This owner built a wall, dug a winepress and built a watchtower. The owner provided everything necessary for the production of wine from this vineyard. The renters worked the field and enjoyed the fruits of their labors. At the end of the harvest, the absentee owner, as was common in Palestine, would send a servant or steward to collect the owner’s share of the profit.

In this case, however, the servants were mistreated—some beaten, some killed. The point is clear. Yahweh sent prophet after prophet to Israel over the centuries to carry a word from the Lord. Often the prophets were rejected, mistreated and some were killed. The leaders of Israel—the kings, false prophets and the wealthy—refused to hear the word of the Lord. As a consequence, as with Isaiah 5:13, Israel experienced judgment in the form of exile. And this trend had not changed in first century Palestine. The leaders of Israel refused to recognize the authority and message of John the Baptist and John was killed by the Herod Antipas. It is important to note that the Herodians are one of the groups involved in this series of confrontations (cf. Mark 12:13).

The parable reaches its climax when the owner decides to send his beloved son. The term “beloved” is the same as we find in Mark 1:11 at the baptism of Jesus and in Mark 9:7 at the transfiguration of Jesus. Mark’s narrative clearly identifies this son with Jesus, that is, Jesus the Son of God (the owner). He is no mere prophet but a son.

It may seem difficult to imagine why the tenants would think they could kill the son and inherit the land. There was a Palestinian practice of “ownerless land.” They probably assumed the father was dead because the son appeared to collect the profits and reasoned among themselves that if the son were dead then the property would be ownerless. When land is ownerless it becomes the property of those who live on it. Consequently, while their actions are certainly unjust, their actions are nevertheless calculated.

Jesus concludes the parable with a question which is not unusual except that Jesus actually answers his own question. The owner will “come and kill” the tenants. The owner will execute a just judgment much like God did in Isaiah 5. But more is said than this.

Jesus said that the owner will “give the vineyard to others.” Who are these “others?” Some suggest Jesus is referring to how the “church” (including Gentiles) will replace “Israel” in a kind of successionism (perhaps how Matthew interprets it in Matthew 21:43). But this is foreign to Mark’s context and does not fit the backdrop of Isaiah 5. Further, the church does not replace Israel but is, according to Paul, grafted into Israel (Romans 11).

Rather, it seems more appropriate to read this as a judgment against the temple authorities and leaders in Jerusalem. God will replace them and a new leadership will emerge. God will destroy the temple, as Mark 13 predicts, and the temple authorities will be judged. The new leadership is the reign of the kingdom of God through Jesus who is the eschatological Son of Man. The royal house of David, in the person of Jesus, will reign again in Jerusalem through the church but also in the new heaven and new earth. Mark does not specify any particulars at this point, but it is clear that the present temple authorities are judged and the “others” are a new leadership which serves the Father and honors the Son.

The quotation of Psalm 118 confirms this reading. The quote functions as a hermeneutical key and Jesus calls attention to this by asking: “Haven’t you read this scripture?” When Jesus triumphantly entered Jerusalem, the crowd hailed the coming of Jesus with the words of Psalm 118:26: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” Jesus is the presence of the triumphant king celebrated in Psalm 118.

The triumphant king of Psalm 118, however, was also one who experienced distress and rejection. His enemies (nations) surrounded him, “swarmed around [him] like bees,” and he was about to die (Psalm 118:10-12, 17-18). Though rejected, the Lord chose him, gave him victory and through him saved Israel.

This is the story of Jesus as well. Rejected by the temple authorities, he will be subjected to beatings and death. But God has chosen this rejected stone to become the “capstone”—perhaps even the capstone of a new temple as Jesus becomes the foundation of a renewed Israel, the people of God. As Jesus has predicted on three different occasions in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus will be killed but God will raise him from the dead.

The “chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders” understood his point. They recognized that they were the targets of this parable. Their intentions were deepened—they wanted to arrest Jesus in order to execute him (Mark 11:18). But they were unable to do act because they were afraid of the crowd which, presumably, was sympathetic to Jesus. They would have to wait for a more private occasion to arrest Jesus (cf. Mark 14:1-2).

Just as first exchange between Jesus and the temple authorities was focused on authority, so was this one. Authority, in this context, is not simply the authority to teach or an authorized agent. The meaning is fuller than that. This is also about political authority—it is the authority to rule or reign.

Whose temple is this? To whom does authority belong? The Son has come to exercise authority over this people who belong to Yahweh. It is the authority of the kingdom of God that trumps the authority of the temple leaders. The kingdom of God, in the person of Jesus, has come to the temple. God, in the person of Jesus, has come to the temple to judge its leaders.

And the leaders—as is normal for political authorities—do not like it. They turn to their most basic solution. It is what nation-states do. They use violence. They will execute their opponent. They only have to wait for the right opportunity.

The parable raises a question for readers: to whom does your allegiance belong? Is not the kingdom of God a matter of exclusive allegiance?

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

Mark 11:27-33 — The Question!

April 23, 2012

On Monday of Passion Week, Jesus entered the temple’s courts and prevented the normal merchandising that turned God’s “house of prayer for all nations” into a “den of robbers.” In other words, Jesus cleansed the temple just as earlier prophets had acted out symbols to embody their message. Jesus judged the temple authorities and their practices by his actions, also symbolized by the cursing the fig tree.

On Tuesday of Passion Week, Jesus encounters opposition from temple and religious leaders as he taught the people in the temple courts. Jesus’s temple cleansing had enraged the authorities and they had begun “to look for a way to kill him” (Mark 11:18).

Jesus spent Tuesday in the temple courts—walking, teaching, and watching. His presence was not ignored. Rather, the temple authorities and religious leaders—one group after another—confronted him, tested him and hoped to catch him in some trap which would expedite his death. Mark highlights these successive attempts by moving from one to the other without any narrative break. Mark 11:27-12:44 is a series of seven controversial encounters between the kingdom of God and the ruling temple authorities and their practices.

  1.  “By what authority are you doing these things?” (Mark 11:28)
  2. “The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone.” (Mark 12:11)
  3. “Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” (Mark 12:14)
  4. “At the resurrection whose wife will she be?” (Mark 12:23)
  5. “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” (Mark 12:28)
  6. “How is it that the teachers of the law say that the Christ is the son of David?” (Mark 12:35).
  7. “This poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the rest” (Mark 12:42).

These confrontations between Jesus and the religious leaders are nestled between the cursing of the fig tree which represents Israel (Mark 11) and the private discussion with his disciples concerning the destruction of Jerusalem (Mark 13). The confrontations themselves provide reasons for divine judgment against Israel’s leaders and thus with consequences for Israel itself, just as the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah had done in the past. Each of the exchanges represents some aspect of Israel (more specifically, the leaders with consequences for the people) which comes under divine judgment but at the same time illuminates the path of the kingdom of God.

  1. Israel rejected the authority of God’s messengers.
  2. Israel rejected the stone which God had chosen.
  3. Israel divided its allegiance between Caesar and God.
  4. Israel lost hope in God’s power over life and death.
  5. Israel failed to love God and neighbor more than burnt offerings and temple sacrifices.
  6. Israel had false expectations of the Messiah.
  7. Israel relished wealth and did not honor the poor (widows).

The first confrontation sets both the tone and the context for the other exchanges between Jesus and the Jewish leaders. The question they raise is central: “By what authority are you doing these things?”

What things? We would certainly include the cleansing of the temple the previous day, but there is more that is untold. We might surmise from the succeeding confrontations the sorts of “things” the leaders had in mind. They valued their wealth and favored status; they loved their power and the praise of their constituencies. They compromised with Caesar and solidified their power by distancing themselves from Messianic hopes.

The message of Jesus is the kingdom of God. Israel was supposed to flourish as that kingdom, but it—in the persons of its leaders—had rejected John the Baptist’s prophetic message of repentance. John came to prepare Israel for the coming of the kingdom through repentance, but the “chief priests, teachers of the law and the elders” refused to repent. They did not see the contrast between their present reign and the reign of the kingdom of God.

The authority of the kingdom of God—in the person of Jesus—threatened their authority. The message of the kingdom of God undermined their understanding of what it meant to reign as God’s leaders among the people. Consequently, they could not acknowledge John and now they had to kill Jesus, just as John himself was martyred for the sake of the kingdom.

Jesus, of course, does not answer their question except by implying that the answer to his question is the answer to their question. Jesus was commissioned by the same authority that John was. They are both prophets sent from God.

Jesus stumped them because they were unwilling to acknowledge John’s authority lest they hear the call to repent, but they were also unwilling to deny it because the people honored John as a prophet.

Jesus does not deny he has authority. Indeed, he implicitly asserts it. Moreover, the previous day he had acted on that authority by cleansing the temple. He simply refuses to justify his authority to those who not only would not believe what he says but who are only interested in some pretense for executing him. Jesus exercises the authority of the kingdom of God against the authority of the temple priests and rulers who live in shocking compromise with Roman authorities.

This exchange begins a series of confrontations that will ultimately lead to his arrest, trial and execution. But at the same time these exchanges reveal the just judgment of God against the ruling authorities in Jerusalem. The drama that will lead to the cross is now fully in play.

6 Comments | Theology | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by John Mark Hicks

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